After yet another verbal duel, Mona Levin and Jostein Gaarder continue their discussion after a national television segment aped atop Oslo's City Hall.

"If you knew what I have gotten via e-mail, SMS and telephone," Levin tells Gaarder.

"Very many begin with: 'Gaarder is right - Israel should be erased.' And this is important for you to know. Because this is how you have been read. Do you think it is amusing to be thought to be behind this?" Levin says, and shows a sampling of the messages she has received.

* "All Jews are just shit."* "Israel is a gangster state."* "Gaarder is right."* "Hitler was right."

On Monday Levin received at least 150 e-mails, SMS and telephone messages, and she estimates that 20 percent were malicious.

"I cannot understand how someone can reach such conclusions from what I wrote. I have two thoughts: This makes me terribly sad. I care about people, and so also Mona Levin. If this is the case I am deeply unhappy. But we must also have freedom of speech," says Gaarder, and pulls out his own mobile phone.

"Don't apologize, Jostein. Instead ask people to read the article properly ... I have several good Jewish friends who despair of the situation and who support you," reads one SMS message from an author colleague.

Levin says she has trouble believing this, and Gaarder proceeds to read out other, similar, messages from colleagues who have read Gaarder as he intended to be read.

Détente?
The problem can be one of miscommunication, Gaarder wants to discuss Israel while Levin is most concerned with the consequences of what Gaarder has written. Gaarder will reexamine his piece word by word, he wants to reach an accord with Levin.

"The best thing would be if I manage to convince him," Levin says.

"You have convinced me, a bit," says Gaarder.

"Did you hear that! And I agree that you are no anti-Semite," Levin says.

"I wish that we could meet and reach a reconciliation," Gaarder says.

"We can go out and have dinner one day," is Levin's reply, though the debate is not yet over.